


In Dreams Wake

by GamLamLudi



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: DLC Spoilers, Gen, Golden Deer Path, Other, Pre-Romance, Timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23423908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamLamLudi/pseuds/GamLamLudi
Summary: Warning: Ashen wolves spoilers in this story so if you haven’t played the DLC be forewarned, particularly toward the end spoilers + one of Yuri’s tea-time statements.Gender neutral pronouns for Byleth.A non-cannon but potentially explainable way of how byleth was able to disappear completely for five years all while being completely unconscious. Implied pre-Yurileth.
Relationships: Yurileth - Relationship, Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc & My Unit | Byleth
Kudos: 19





	1. Lost

“Where is the professor!” Claude yelled out after seeing a giant white dragon pass overhead.

No one had seen Byleth after the giant dragon flew overhead, despite the battle reducing in number, most of the empire’s soldiers had either given pursuit of the blue lions or followed the dragons location. Most of the stragglers that remained on Claude’s side of things were either fleeing to regroup or defect entirely.

A lot of the students that transferred to Byleth’s class got separated from the golden deer during the mayhem of the invasion. After all was said and done, Claude took charge from Byleth's absence, assuming they had been separated like the others and called a tactical retreat away from the monastery until things had time to blow over.

They staked out a location nearby and had some of the more skilled infantry go in to find students that had been separated during the mayhem, some of the underground soldiers came above ground to drive back the invading empire as well. They had managed to salvage everyone over the course of a day, surprisingly with no casualties.

The day following the madness Lorenz and Hapi were sent out to search for any traces of Byleth after they had gone missing. Despite a few whispers here and there, most of the class were still holding out hope but the dangers of the remaining empire soldiers was still do dangerous to do a thorough sweep of the place. Lorenz came back particularly flustered, his horse panting and his face scarred from a nearby attack.

“We found the gatekeeper!” he yelled rather dramatically, “Hapi is flying him back here.”

“We’re looking for Byleth, Lorenz.” Yuri replied, anxiety welling up in him, it had been long enough for him to worry about the grou-no his group of people, if the empire had gotten to them… He mentally shook the thought from his mind, they could more than handle themselves against traditionalist tactics... his primary concern right now was Byleth.

“I’m well aware but he has some information regarding that.” Hapi’s Pegasus landed, she hopped off with a sobbing gate-keeper, his armor was dented, some blood seeping through the shoulder portion, he was holding tightly onto a very recognizable blade. Byleth was rarely seen without the sword of the creator, the handle itself has blood on it.

“What happened?!” Claude wasn’t able to keep his regular calm, Byleth had that strange sway over people, even the most calm and collected individuals lost their cool over Byleth, it was a strange phenomena that Yuri had discovered over time, though honestly his blood felt like ice right now too.

“The professor is… dead.” Gate-keeper sobbed loudly as he tightened his grip around the now inactive sword of the creator.

“How?” Yuri’s general façade disappeared almost entirely, ‘dead’ the most powerful individual in that entire school was gone?

“Th-The professor w-was thrown off the side of a cliff by two-no three maybe m-monsters and, and…” he gritted his teeth, his voice breaking “and fell into a chasm.”

“Did you find a body?” He asked, trying his best to return back to a neutral state, and failing horribly.

“It was on the edge of a large chasm, there’s no way the professor…” The soldier trailed off before more tears streamed down his face, unable to speak.

For Yuri however, one of his most painful lessons was that no body usually meant just that the dead body hadn’t been found, or that the individual was alive enough to move.

“As much as I hate to say it we can search for teach later, right now we need to get to safety.” Claude replied, he looked calm and collected, Yuri could see the concern in his eyes though.

“Wait, we’re just giving up on the professor?!” Lorenz asked.

“We cannot scout the abyss right now, it’s too dangerous with the amount of empire soldiers around.” Claude’s eyes grew distant as he looked out to the horizon, “and as much as I hate to say it, we need to warn the alliance of what happened, otherwise we could be facing more than one huge loss.”

““You guys do that.” Yuri replied, everyone knew that Claude was one of Byleth’s closest confidants at the monastery, he was just doing as a leader must even though he could clearly see that if given a chance he’d do the searching himself.

“But.” Raphael started.

“It’s probably best for all of you to return to safety and figure things out.” Yuri replied, “Leave finding Byleth to us, we’ll send word of when it’s safe to come back and do a more wide-spread search of the professor.”

“You’re not coming along then?” His expression changed, probably because someone made his decision slightly easier.

“Little me? Nah, I still have business here.” Yuri gave his classical smile.

“I’ll leave it to you four.” Claude replied, mounting his wyvern, “Keep us up to date Yuri.”

“Will do.”

Yuri lead the ashen wolves and the still sobbing gatekeeper down a path to the abyss that only they knew about, he wanted his first objective to be to find the professor, but he needed to make sure the Abyssinians were still alive and well.

Though there was some scuffle between the empire and the Abyssinians, the empire soldiers had to retreat after enough numbers got lost in the maze of the catacombs.

“It’s been a long day, you guys rest.” Yuri said to the others, he was going to have the keeper show him which area Byleth had fallen.

“And leave you with all the work to find chatterbox.” Hapi wasn’t alone in her uprising.

"Of course you think someone of house Nuvelle would not pay back their debts." Yuri rolled his eyes, she was probably the most exhausted of the three by far.

“I’m going to see where professor fell, the keeper can help us find their general location, then when you guys have rested up enough you can help me find them.” He said nonchalantly, he knew that if he tried to rest he’d just go bald stressing about whether taking the time to rest could make the difference between life and death for Byleth.

He gently took the sword of the creator from the keeper whom was still crying, “I’ll take you to the locations near where you said the professor fell.”

Surprisingly it wasn’t hard to find the spot where Byleth fell, at least in Yuri’s mind, two dead monster corpses and a trail of blood dripping from the hole into the sewage water was more than enough for him to know that this was the location, even the strike marks on the monster looked like it came from the sword of the creator.

“Thank you gate-keeper, I’ll take it from here, you go back and rest.” Yuri pulled out a small object and set it onto the ground.

“But…” The gate-keeper started, Yuri lifted a hand to stop him any further.

“It’s been a long day.” He gave one of his dazzling but fake smiles, “You need some rest too.”

It had been almost a week since that day, many of Byleth’s class had returned to help the ashen wolves search, there was still no sign of them. As it was the empire soldiers had abandoned the ruins of the monastery, allowing the golden deer class to scope out any potential leads above ground while he and Hapi in particular began to search portions of the underground ruins that they’d never explored before.

Yuri was getting frustrated, there wasn’t a blood trail that followed past the dead beasts, bloodied footsteps were non-existent, and as he mulled over the decaying beasts body, it almost seemed like they were dead before they fell, Byleth could have either been very dead at this point or lay unconscious somewhere in pain and infection, or perhaps lost their memories… or…

He shook his head, he couldn’t afford to think on the possibilities, they was still not found and if they were anything like Sitri perhaps their body was immune to decay?

He continued to follow the stream, he had walked along this path many times before but never as far as he had, perhaps they simply fell into the water, drowned and lay at the bottom somewhere further south. He smiled at the idea, they would have found Byleth by now if that was the case…

To his surprise however he caught a glint of what looked almost like a drowned corpse caught on a larger rock. He hopped to the opposite path to get a better look, he prayed to seiros that it wasn’t them. 

His heart skipped a beat, the hair color was unmistakable as theirs, without thinking he jumped into the water and pulled their body out. There wasn’t an ounce of decay, in fact their body wasn’t even bloated despite being drowned in water for what could have been over a week.

“Professor!” He shouted in the futile hope that they could hear him, he touched their neck to eliminate any doubt and to his absolute horror and somewhat relief, they had a pulse.

He then checked Byleth's chest to make sure their heart was going. To his horror, the professors heart had stopped, and they weren't breathing. In a moment of feeling like his mind had just snapped or something he double checked their pulse to make sure they were still alive, their pulse was still going.

A vague memory came into his mind,

_“Hey professor tell us something we’d never believe?”_

_“I don’t have a heartbeat.”_

It was impossible wasn’t it? Heart beats were necessary for people to live, breathing was necessary? Perhaps this entire time they were telling the truth, occasionally during camping he wondered if they were breathing at times so perhaps?

How was he to explain to the others that somehow, they was still alive even if they weren't conscious? A small thought made him wonder if he even should… especially because what if word got out that they were still alive, what if it would be better to keep them hidden from the rest of the world, like Rhea tried to do with Sitri? He didn’t like the idea as it felt a little too much like Aelfric but he also wasn’t sure if the other ashen wolves or perhaps the golden deer could be driven to use the chalice of resurrection again, something he most assuredly would avoid at all costs.

Sadly, History repeats itself often enough…


	2. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch: 2 After Yuri Finds Byleth

In his short life, Yuri's gut feeling is rarely wrong and with that thought he immediately started to consider his options, which places people rarely visited, how the hell he was even going to get Byleth to a safe location without being spotted.

He sighed loudly again as he decided to follow a lesser known path, even by the Abyssinians, to both bide his time on figuring out the best location and let enough time pass to have a better shot of hiding Byleth. 

Eventually he found his way to the surface, his mind finally set on the best location, the holy mausoleum, people wouldn’t look there for them, especially after the entire room had been completely pillaged and checked over a hundred times over.

He set them down onto one of the stone crypts, he’d have to clean them up somehow, the smell of sewage is bound to draw attention, in addition he would need to be as inconspicuous as possible when he came to check up on them.

“One day at a time.” He told himself audibly.

“What took you so long?” Balthus asked, it was alright nightfall by the time he bathed, cleaned his clothing, and returned underground.

“I followed the path from where Byleth fell to the opening we found yesterday again, I double checked the water, there’s no possible way the professor floated on the stream down to the village, the water level is too shallow even with a flood.” He concluded without skipping a beat, something he had gotten very good at.

“hmm, then perhaps the other way?” Constance added covering the basis of everything.

“Other way leads toward the heart of town, so Byleth won’t be there as someone was bound to discover them intentionally or no.” this seemed to pop the potential enthusiasm that had been whiplashing throughout the group.

__

It took the better part of three months before everyone except for Hapi gave up hope of finding the professor, They would disappear for hours on end charting the areas that none of them had gone before and even discovering some things along the way.

Yuri wanted to tell her, but he worried that out of anyone she might be the most likely to attempt to resurrect Byleth or convince Constance to work on some experimental magic spell to awaken them again. As it was Byleth was breathing again, he had discovered a few days after putting them into the holy mausoleum that they had hacked up quite a bit of water, the mess wasn’t the most pleasant but at the very least he could clean them up in a single go rather than having it happen afterward.

When he disappeared he simply stated it was to find Byleth, to which no-one argued with initially, as time went on however and the years began to pass Balthus would confront him enough that he ‘stopped’ looking for the professor and instead simply called it ‘scouting the area’ which wasn’t false.

As he tended to adjusting things around Byleth’s spot, he sometimes wondered if this was how Aelfric felt about Sitri, watching over a body that would neither decay or awaken, and in particularly desperate times during the war, the wish to wake them up came to mind.

There was one big difference however, he had no will to do whatever it took to awake them, perhaps they’d sleep for a century before awakening, if so they’d just have to manage.

When Byleth finally did awake it was during a group outing, they found that their entire body complained to any kind of movement, no matter how small. The clothing they wore smelled a bit musty much like the mausoleum itself.

They took in their surroundings to see a small stool located nearby, a variety of blankets and other stuff. Byleth eventually willed themselves off the crypt and looked around in a stupor to find their blade was still missing. When they left the mausoleum, the scene before them was harrowing, the entirety of the school was left in ruins, memories of what happened flashed into their mind as they went toward the barracks to double check everything. Their room was completely untouched outside of the sword of the creator being mounted on the wall.

They then decided to head to the goddess tower even though the entire school was empty perhaps they’d spot somebody that could tell them what happened since the battle.

That was when they found Claude smiling brightly at them, tears threatening to form as if it had been a long time since he saw them, telling them how he never expected to see them again and how happy he was that they somehow managed to avoid death.

Despite the grogginess Byleth wondered why he hadn’t mentioned anything about the mausoleum, why where they placed there, or was Claude just trying to break the ice?

After battle, Byleth eventually met up with the others and non-other than Yuri.

“I see you finally awoke” He beamed.

“You knew I was asleep?” Byleth asked, confusion clear in their tone.

“I was the one that put you in the mausoleum.” He stated, “It was quite the stressful experience to see if you’d ever wake up.”

“why didn’t anyone say anything about it, they all looked confused when I told them I was there?” Byleth asked.

“I didn’t mention it.” Yuri replied honestly, he saw no reason to hide it anymore, “You know my style of things.” Boy did they, he lied to his entire group in order to protect them so they knew just how far he would go to protect people.

Byleth smiled sadly, “Was it that bad?”

“If Hapi had her way you’d probably have awakened sooner and probably with a thousand monster corpses to compensate for all the failures. Not to mention you might not have been the same if Constance was allowed to go full boar.”

“How long have I been out? I gather it’s been a while with everyone’s reaction”

“No one’s told you?” Byleth shook their head, this made Yuri feel awkward and a little weird. “Five years.” That hit them hard, the fact that the monastery had gone five years without repair, the fact that they could sleep for five years without anyone knowing, truly Yuri’s statement of getting them to vanish if they needed or wanted to was much more real in this moment.

“Well thank you none-the-less.” They replied smiling, a warmth in their eyes that Yuri had never seen before causing his heart to skip a beat. “and I’m glad to see you again.”

…..Holy shit…

He swore in that moment his cheeks began to burn, he expected Byleth to hammer down on how close he had come to being like Aelfric, how creepy it was the fact that he was housing their unconscious body in a crypt, or even that he didn’t do more to wake them up sooner, all the thoughts that were making him second guess his decisions as time went on.

“Oh well, you’re welcome for what it’s worth-but honestly I am just glad you finally awoke.” The blush still hadn't wavered from his cheeks as he rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. 

**Author's Note:**

> Byleth just soaking in a bog bothered me for having that be the explanation, I expected that they flew into the future or were just in some coma


End file.
